Old Blog

On Treating Your Batteries Correctly

There’s a lot of ‘talk’ about how to treat batteries and the devices dependent on them, like the iPod. Some never charge in-between full charge and empty, citing wear and tear on the battery, and others, like me, go from dock-at-home to dock-at-work in 10 minutes or less.

But it’s always nice to know what the deal is, and so Apple gives us the low down:

You can also recharge a lithium-ion battery whenever convenient, without the full charge or discharge cycle necessary to keep nickel-based batteries at peak performance. #

And:

According to BatteryUniversity.com, it’s a public secret that lithium batteries start losing their capacity as soon as they’re manufactured, but this process is greatly accelerated by two factors: a high temperature and a full charge. #

I’ve always been of the mind that the shortcoming of a piece of tech shouldn’t dictate to me how it should or shouldn’t be used. So I go about my day with a rather careless disregard for the longevity of my devices. A disregard which it turns out wasn’t entirely unfounded… Well, it was at the time; but now I can be carefree instead of careless. Hurrah.

PS: Martin, whom I work with, was in here, telling me that I quoted out of context and what not, so please, for your own battery’s health, read the entire thing and draw your own conclusions (and feel free to wave them around in the comments).